Meet Yakka Skink and Ornamental Snake which halted the Adanis in Australia

The Adanis’ Australian dreams have been shattered.

Image: Peter Gash, owner and manager of the Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort, snorkels during an inspection of the reef's condition in the 'Coral Gardens' . Photograph: David Gray Reuters

The group’s $16.5 billion project has been halted to protect two vulnerable species -- yakka skink and the ornamental snake.

An Australian court has revoked the government's environmental approval for one of the world's biggest coal mines under construction in Australia after environmental legal centre EDO NSW, representing the Mackay Conservation Group, challenged the approval given by Environment Minister Greg Hunt.

Image: Yakka Skink comes in the way of Adanis’ Queensland project. Photograph, courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

Yakka Skink is a secretive animal that is active during the daytime, grows up to 40 centimetres in length and has a thick tail. With a reddish-brown body, it has broad, dark brown to black stripes that extend from the back side of the neck to the tail.

An omnivorous (eating plans and animals) species, the skink is threatened by land clearing activities and mining.

The other endangered species which the Adani project can harm is the brown coloured ornamental snake which has a stout body and grows to a length of 50 cm. A dangerous animal, the ornamental snake has the ability to compress its body and can holds itself in curves. It can attack brutally if it feels threatened.

Image: Ornamental snake halts Adanis’ Queensland project. Photograph, courtesy: Wikimedia Commons

The ornamental snake and the skink are listed as ‘vulnerable’ in Queensland’s Nature Conservation Act, 1992.

Environmentalists hailed the ruling against the controversial Carmichael mine which would endanger the Great Barrier Reef and its rare species.

The proposed mine would have been Australia’s largest coal mine exporting up to 60 million tonnes of coal from across the Great Barrier Reef coast every year, at the cost of threatening the ecological balance of the region, point out environmentalists.

Adani, which wants to ship millions of tonnes of coal a year to India, has battled environmental opposition since starting work on the mine five years ago.

Though the approval for underground coal mine was granted in July 2014, local conservation groups had intensified their protest leading to the project coming to a standstill.

Image: An aerial view of Lady Elliot Island on the southern end of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters

The conservation advices were approved by the minister in April last year, and describe the threats to the survival of these threatened species which are found only in Queensland. The law requires that the minister consider these conservation advices so that he understands the impacts of the decision that he is making on matters of national environmental significance, in this case the threatened species,” Sue Higginson, principal solicitor of EDO NSW, the environmental legal centre, was quoted as saying.

Will the Adanis back out or face the wrath of these endangered species and environmentalists in Australia?

The group, which recently halted work in some areas of the mine as it waited for government sanctions, preferred to call the ruling to a 'technical legal error' and said it was confident the matter would be rectified, according to a Reuters report.

Image: Tourists stand in front of huts that form part of the Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort where a turtle digs for food among the coral in the island's lagoon in Queensland. Photograph: Reuters

According to the Mackay Conservation Group, the project will use over 12 billion litres of water per year, depriving the region of precious underground water resources and lead to substantial greenhouse gas emissions

Mackay Conservation Group has alleged that, ‘Carmichael mine will not yield the promised jobs or royalties for Queensland. Net jobs for the project (taking into account job losses in other industries) will be as low as 1464 and Adani has exaggerated income from royalties from the Carmichael mine.’